




o « 






.^q. 
















OBSEIIVA.TIONS 



ON 



TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY, 



CONSISTINQ OF 



THRBK SEVEKAL ANSWERS TO THE MAGAZINE ARTICLE, 
SPEECHES, AND PAMPHLETS 



SEiXATOR DOUGLAS, 



^ WITH AN INTRODUCTORY PREFACE 






BY J.' Sf BLACK. 




L* 






WASHINGTON: 

THOMAS MoGILL, PRINTER, 

1860. 



■^X4^-''. '- 






t 



PREFACE. 



The republication of the following articles has not been assented to from any desire to 
prolong the discussion with those who entertain different opinions. But it is believed 
that they may contribute in some slight degree to the adjustment of a subject which 
cannot remain' unadjusted, without serious danger to the public institutions of the 
country. At all events, it is right that those citizens who believe in the doctrines here 
expressed, should be heard to the full extent of the general willingness to hear. 

The matters here discussed connect themselves more or less closely with questions 
that, for years past, have been written and spoken upon so constantly, and so bitterly, 
between the South and a certain portion of the North, that we see it at length absorbing 
the universal attention of the people. It has engendered between the two sections a 
hatred so intense and so- rancorous, that many politicians, who count themselves saga- 
cious, look forward — some with exulting hope, and others with dread and terror — to 
the election of a President whose popularity sliall be derived wholly from the fact that 
he has no respect for the opinions, and no regard for the asserted rights of fifteen States. 
It must either stop altogether, or else grow worse from day to day; for in such a con- 
test, where men abuse each other at the safe distance of a thousand miles, it is vain to 
look for moderation of tone or decency of language. Hatred will be paid back with 
hatred. If the heart of one party festers with spite, that of the other will continue to 
swell with indignation, until harmony becomes impossible. Such feelings must neces- 
sarily produce violence, bloodshed, and rapine. 

"Hates any man ihe thing he would not kill.''" 

No : some have already found in assassination and robbery the natural outlet for a 
passion which they shared in common with thousands of their political associates; and 
when another individual adjudged the slaveholders to be worthy of death, and publislied a 
book to urge the immediate execution of his sentence, he reasoned logically enough from 
premises which had been furnished in abundance by the pulpit, the press, and the ros- 
trum of his party. When you put the wolf's head on the shoulders of one class, yon 
h^e no right to blame another for killing them. 

Already has this unnatural hostility become so strong, that the feelings with which 
men generally regard the foreign enemies of their country are tame and quiet in com- 
parison. The war of 1812 was provoked by twenty j^ears' of insult to the American 
fl8.g, by the long continued spoliation of American • property on the high seas, and by 
the enslavement of more than six thousand American citizens. In some places the war 
itself was conducted by the enemy with such a ferocious disregard of humanity, that 
Englishmen themselves have been ashamed of it ever since. Yet at no period of that 
contest was there half as much denunci.atiou of England as there is now of the South. 
It is very certain that the ministers of religion, the public men and dominant political 
parties of New England, spoke of Great Britain, then, with a forbearance and a charity 
which are in very remarkable contrast with the unceasing maledictions which they are 
now pouring out on their own countrymen. 

This passionate malice perverts the entire character of persons otherwise disposed to 
be orderly, dutiful, and loyal, if not patriotic. It "turns their milk of human kindness 
into gall," and so blunts their moral perceptions, that in the plainest cases they do not 
perceive the difference between right and wrong. Men and women, who are by nature 
far from being incapable of virtuous emotions, and who have been brought up with all 
the lights of Christianity blazing around them, have learned to thirst for the blood of 
their fellow-beings, and to admire those who wantonly shed it. The intellect, as Avell as the 
heart, withers under the curse of this bigoted feeling. When a man, even of good ca- 
pacit]^ becomes saturated with it, he drivels like an idiot. If this truth were per- 
ceptible only in a few sporadic cases of itinerant lecturers or wild politiciiins, it might 
be less lamentable. But it has spread like an epidemic, and large communities, with 



schools and churches among them, have become its victims. If any one doubts this, a 
little reflection upon well-known facts of very recent occurrence will convince him. 
John Brown, a coarse-grained ruffian, whose name had years before been infamous for 
his many treacherous murders, who was a self-confessed thief, and ' 'a most toad-spotted 
traitor, ' ' organized in Canada a plot for the overthrow of the American Government, 
and the plunder of its property. With a supply of arms, large enough to furnish a for- 
midable force, and hoping for men of all colors to wield them, he and his confederates 
sneaked upon a peaceful and undefended village in Virginia at midnight, and com- 
menced the v/ork of murder and robbery. The public authorities overpowered, arrested, 
tried, and hung him. It is almost incredible, but true, nevertheless, that on the cha- 
racter of this abandoned and impenitent wretch, eloquent eulogies have been pronounced, 
and funeral sermons preached, full of extravagant praise. The name of Washington is 
mentioned in some of them only to show how contemptible Washington was when com- 
.pared with John Brown, while others blasphemously assert that Christ alone was his 
equal. This is accompanied with such abuse of those who stopped his bloody career, as 
to leave no doubt whatever that, in the opinion of his abolition friends, he was not only 
a good man, but so very good that the people of Virginia were morally bound to stand 
still and let him butcher them and their families, without resistance and without pun- 
ishment. What influence but that of the most degrading superstition could bring the 
faculties of any reasoning creature down so low as this ? But it was not of these extreme 
fanatics that 1 meant to speak. It seems that nearly the whole people of Massachusetts 
are filled with admiration for what they regard as "iAe rare heroism" of Brown's charac- 
ter. No such wholesale charge should be made against the intelligence and morality of 
any civilized people on the globe, without the most unanswerable proof. It is not the ene- 
mies ofMassachusetts who make it in this case; it comes from her bwn Senator, who is a man 
of veracity and a faithful representative of his constituents. He has publicly, over his own 
name, in the newspapers of the country, declared it to be his conviction that, though the 
people of Massachusetts "deplore and condemn" his act, "they are nearly unanimous in 
their sympathy for the fate of Brown, and in the admiration of his personal qualities." 
That fanaticism must be, indeed, far gone which can make the whole population of an 
American State sympathise with a cold-blooded assassin, and admire the personal quali- 
ties of a thief. The frightful delusion which two hundred years ago sacrificed the lives 
of innocent people for witchcraft by the score, begins to look respectable. The fierce 
hatred of Quakers and Baptists which publicly lashed the naked backs of women, and 
sti-angled them to death for preaching the Gospel, may find some apology in the barbarism 
of the age; but what can be said for the dwarfing prejudice which, in the middle of the 
nineteenth century, confounds all distinction between a felon and a hero? 

Such is the nature of the conflict. If it be truly irrepressible, how long will our Gov- 
ernment be able to abide the rough handling which it will be sure to get? If our fathers 
had foreseen the fatal degeneracy of their sons, they would scarcely have thought it worth 
while to organize a political system depending for success upon the good will and mutual 
respect which then prevailed among all the members of the confederacy. The States are 
not held together by physical force; it is the kindlier law of attraction which thvis^^far 
has made us one great nation. Brute strength is not sufficient for the purpose; and if 
it were, the exercise of it would result in calamities far greater than any which could 
follow from a peaceful dissolution. 

I know that there are quarters where the expression of a doubt concerning the per- 
petuity of the Union is always answered with sneers — sometimes with insult. By some 
it is regarded as causeless timidity; by others it is considered a mere partisan trick. But 
it should not be forgotten that our ablest and our boldest men have acted under the in- 
fluence of this opinion. The great heart of Washington himself, in times far less por- 
tentous than these, was often oppressed with it; and Jefferson declared that the first 
agitation of the slavery question in Congress had waked him like a fire-bell in the night, 
and filled him with apprehensions for the country. A Roman citizen, accused of hold- 
ing mistaken opinions, thought it a sufficient apology that he had erred with Cato. My 
error, if it be one, is shared with hundreds of American statesmen, each one of whom 
is a wiser and a better man than Cato ever was. 

The danger can be averted in one way only; and that is by ascertaining and settling 
the legal rights of the respective parties. We cannot convince the ultra bigots. 
"Bphraim is joined to his idols — let him alone." When a man's heart becomes thor- 
oughly staurated with this sort of hatred, it is quite impossible that he should be changed 
so as to make him "bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness." 

"For faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast 

To some dear falsehood, hugs It to the last." f| 

But the great body of the American people are eminently law-abiding and conserva- 



tive. They know very well that they have cverythinf>; to lose and nothui}; to Rain by 
opposin<T the laws. An overwhelming majority, North as well as South, will yield their 
private judgment to thatpublic wisdom which the t'onstitution cmlmdies; and in no part 
of the country will they in their present temper defer to anything else. The political in- 
tluence which had men have accpiired over a jiortion of them will dissolve like a dream as 
soon as they become entirely satisfied tluvt they are to be engaged in a "onflict against 
law. Every American citizen, therefore, who exerts himself, however feebly, to correct 
popular errors on this subject, by a just exposition of the Constitution and laws, may 
claim at least the one merit of having meant well for his country. 

It is worth a little more time to state the princii)al points which have been lost and 
won in the discussion of the slavery cpiestion during the last few years. 

1. Slavery within the limits of a State cannot be legally interfered with by any 
power but that of the State itself. The contrary of this has never been seriously asserted 
by any respectable body of men; and the re])rcsentatives of the Republican jiarty liave 
solemnly denied that they entertain such a doctrine. This positive disclaimer was 
needed, however, and came in good time; for the formation of a party which lives on 
agitation concerning slavery in the States is hard to account for if its founders believe 
they have nothing to do with it. \ 

2. ('Ongress has no power to abolish or interdict slavery in a federal territory. 11 
authority can settle anything, there will be no further controversy on this point. Con- 
gress itself has solemnly asserted it on the statute-book; the Executive has adjled its 
deliberate approval; the Supreme Court has declared it to be inconttstably true; and the 
American people, after hearing a long and earnest discussion of it, to the almost total 
exclusion of other topics, gave their verdict in its favor .at the presidential election of 
1856. Those who still think it ought to havelieen decided differently can hardly contend 
for their private views in the face of the public judgment, witho>it being conscious of a 
mischievous purpose; since they must know that a decision so made and so sanctioned 
can never be reversed. 

3. The people of all the Territories have a right, "acting through the legally and 
fairly expressed will of a majority of actual residents, and whenever the number of their 
inhabitants justifies it, to form a constitution, with or without domestic slavery, and be 
admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other States." This is 
the language of the Cincinnati platform. It was thoroughly examined and fully aj)- 
proved by the people in the canvass of 1850. If that were all, the answer might be 
that the popular decision may be reversed on another vote. But the justice, fairness, 
and truth of the proposition is so clear that it has commanded the unqualified assent of 
the opposition themselves. Every Republican member of the last (Congress in both 
houses voted in some form or other for the admission of Kansas, with or without slavery, 
as a majority of her people might determine. 

4. Congress having no power to interfere with slavery in the Territories, oaniiot 
bestow it on a Territorial Legislature. This is not controverted by the opposition. It 
seems strange that it should have been denied anywhere. Rut the authority of the 
Supreme Court and a little further reflection will soon dispel whatever doubts may yet 
be lingering in the minds of a few. 

5. The Territorial governments are not sovereign, but public corporations, having no 
powers except what are given by the organic acts which create them, and therefore they 
have, and can have, no authority to divest the right of property in slaves or anything 
else. This has never been denied by any public man of great reputation, unless the 
Harper article of Mr. Douglas be a denial. Hut he has not directly contradicted it in 
any of the replies he made to the "Observations." On the contrary, he has several 
times in the course of this controversy, and often elsewhere, admitted that a Territorial 
government is not sovereign. We may therefore fairly conclude that sovereignty in 
the Territories is an obsolete idea. 

Assuming these legal propositions to be true, and assuming also that the Republican 
party intend to redeem the pledge which their representatives in Congress have given 
not to violate the Constitution or laws of the General Government, they must soon 
begin to see that there is nothing left upon which they can raise a quarrel with their 
brethren. They would not abolish slavery in the States, and they cM,nnot, directly or 
indirectly, reach it in the Territories by means of any legislation to' which tlicy can con- 
stitutionally resort. They must leave it in the latter case to be determined by the 
people of the Territories when they form a State constitution, or afterwards by 'their 
legislature, upon such terms and conditions as the constitution may impose. The Fede- 
ral Constitution, as expounded by the Supreme Court, is higher authority than any 
anti-slavery convention. Resides that, it furnishes a better rule and a safer 'one for the 
adjustment of the subject. It does not put property in the Territories at the mercy of a 
party majority in the States; nor does it allow one portion of the settlers in a Territory 



6 

to exercise the unlimited power of robbing the rest. It secures the legal rights of all 
concerned, and yet leaves the destinies of every new State in the hands of its own people, 
to be shaped according to their will, legally expressed, under such restraints only as 
are imposed on every government which is not meant to be a despotism. We are not 
yet compelled to dismiss all belief that the opposition will in the fulness of time acknow- 
ledge the superior wisdom, sagacity, and justice of the Democratic party on this as on 
other subjects. Whenever that shall be the case, the exciting hope of the patriot will 
revive, and the gratifying prospects of the country will open again as brightly as ever. 
Then shall we see this '■ ' mighty and puissant nation rousing herself ^ke a strong man 
after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks," in preparatfon for a future career whose 
prosperity and glory shall dim even the splendors of the past. 



OBSERVATIONS 



Every one knows that Mr. Douglas, the Senator from Illinois, has written and printed 
an elaljorate essay, comprising thirty-eight columns of Harper's Magazine, in which he 
has undertaken to point out the " dividing line between federal and local authority." 
Very many persons have glanced over its paragraphs to catch the leading ideas without 
loss of time, and some few have probabl}^ read it with care. 

Those who dissent from the doctrines of this paper owe to its author, if not to his 
arguments, a most respectful answer. Mr. Douglas is not the man to be treated with a 
disdainful silence. His ability is a fact unquestioned ; his public career, in the face of 
many disadvantages, has been uncommonly successful; and he has been for many years 
a working, struggling candidate for the Presidency. He is, moreover, the Corypheus 
of his political sect, the founder of a new school, and his disciples naturally believe in 
the infallible verity of his words as a part of their faith. 

The style of the article is, in some respects, highly commendable. It is entirely free 
from the vulgar clap-trap of the stump, and has no vain adornment of classical scholar- 
ship. But it shows no sign of the eloquent Senator; it is even without the logic of the 
great debater. Many portions of it are very obscure. It seems to be an unsuccessful 
effort at legal precision, like the writing of a judge who is trying in vain to give good 
reasons for a wrong decision on a question of law which he has not quite mastered. 

With the help of Messrs. Seward and Lincoln, he has defined accurately enough the 
platform of the so-called Republican party; and he does not attempt to conceal his con- 
viction that their doctrines are in the last degree dangerous. They are, most assuredly, 
full of evil and saturated with mischief. The " irrepressible conflict" which they speak 
of with so much pleasure between the "opposing and enduring forces" of the Northern 
and Southern States, will be fatal, not merely to the peace of the country, but to the 
existence of the Government itself. Mr. Douglas knows this, and he knows also that 
the Democratic party is the only power which is or can be organized to resist the Re- 
publican forces or oppose their hostile march upon the capital. He who divides and 
weakens the friends of the country at such a crisis in her fortunes assumes a very grave 
responsibility. 

Mr. Douglas separates the Democratic party into three classes, and describes them as 
follows : 

" First. Those who believe that the Constitution of the United States neither establishes nor prohihitji 
slavery in the States or Territories beyond the power of the people legally to control it, but 'leaves thn 
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject 
only to the Constitution of the United States.' 

"Second. Those who believe that the Constitution establishes slavery in the Territories, and with- 
holds from Congress and the Territorial legislature the power to control it, and who insist that, in the 
event the Territorial legislature fails to enact the requisite laws for its protection, it becomes the impera 
live duty of Congress to interpose its authority and furnish such protection. 

"Third. Those who, while professing to believe that the Constitution establishes slavery in the Terri- 
tories beyond the power of Congress or the Territorial legislature to control it, at the same time protest 
against the duty of Congress to interfere for its protection; but insist that it is the duty of the judiciary to 
protect and maintain slavery in the^Territories without any law upon the subject." 

We give Mr. Douglas the full benefit of his own statement. This is his mode of ex- 
pressing those differences, which, he says, disturb the harmony and threaten the integ- 
rity of the American Democracy. These passages should, therefore, be most carefully 
considered. 

The first class is the one to which he himself belongs, and to both the others he ia 
equally opposed. He has no right to come between the second and third class. If the 
difference which he speaks of does exist among his opponents, it is their business, not 
his, to settle it or fight it out. We shall therefore confine ourselves to the dispute Jie- 
tweeu Mr. Douglas and his followers on the one hand, and the rest of the Dewocrnlic 
party on the other, presuming that he will be willing to observe the principle of non- 
intervention in all matters with which he has no concern. 

We will invert the order in which he has discussed the subject, and endeavor to 
show — 



1. That he has not correctly stated the doctrine held by his opponents; and, 

2. That his own opinions, as giren by himself, are altogether unsound. 

I, He says that a certain portion of the Democratic party believe, or profess to be- 
lieve, that the Constitution establishes slavery in the Territories, and insist that it is the duty 
of the judiciary to maintain it there ivithout any law on the subject. We do not charge 
him with any intention to be unfair; but we assert, that he has in fact done wrong to, 
probably, nineteen-twentieths of the party, by attempting to put them on grounds which 
they never chose for themselves. 

The Constitution certainly does not establish slavery in the Territor-ies, nor anywhere 
else. Nobody in this country ever thought or said so. But the Constitution regards as 
sacred and inviolable all the rights which a citizen may legally acquire in a State. If a 
man acquires property of any kind in a State, and goes with it into a Territory, he is not 
for that reason to be stripped of it. Our simple and plain proposition is, that the legal 
owner of a slave or other chattel may go with it into a Federal Territory without for- 
feiting his title. 

Who denies the truth of this, and upon what ground can it be controverted ? The 
reasons which support it are very obvious and very conclusive. As a jurist and a states- 
man, Mr. Douglas ought to be familiar with them, and there was a time when he was 
supposed to understand them very well. We will briefly give him a few of them. 

1. It is an axiomatic principle of public law, that a right of property, a private rela- 
tion, condition or status, lawfully existing in one State or country, is not changed by the 
mere removal of the parties to another country, unless the law of that other country be in 
direct conflict with it. For instance: A marriage legally solemnized in France is bind- 
ing in America; children born in Germany are legitimate here if they are legitimate there; 
and a merchant who buys goods in New York, according to the laws of tha,t State, may 
carry them to Illinois and hold them there under his contract. It is precisely so with 
the status of a negro carried from one part of the United States to another; the question 
of hisfreedom or servitude depends on the law of the place where he came from, and 
depends on that alone, if there be no conflicting law at the place to which he goes or is 
taken. The Federal Constitution therefore recognises slavery as a legal condition 
wherever the local governments have chosen to let it stand unabolished, and regards 
it as illegal wherever the laws of the place have forbidden it. A slave being property 
in Virginia, remains property; and his master has all the rights of a Virginia master 
wherever he may go, so that he go not to any place where the local law comes in con- 
flict with his right. It will not be pretended that the Constitution itself furnishes to 
the Territories a conflicting law. It contains no provision that can be tortured into any 
semblance of a prohibition. 

2. The dispute on the question whether slavery or freedom is local or general, is a 
mere war of words. The black race in this country is neither bond nor free by virtue of 
any general law. That portion of it which is free is free by virtue of some local regula- 
tion, and the slave owes service for a similar reason. The Constitution and laws of the 
United States simply declare that everything done in the premises by the State govern- 
ments is right, and they shall be protected in carrying it out. But free negroes and 
slaves may both find themselves outside of any State jurisdiction, and in a Territory 
where no regulation has yet been made on the subject. There the Constitution is equally 
impartial. It neither frees the slave nor enslaves the freeman. It requires both to re- 
main in statu quo, until the status already impressed upon them by the law of their pre- 
vious domicil shall be changed by some competent local authority. What is competent 
local authority in a Territory will be elsewhere considered. 

3. The Federal Constitution carefully guards the rights of private property against 
the Federal Government itself, by declaring that it shall not be taken for public use 
without compensation, nor without due process of law. Slaves are private property, 
and every man who has taken an oath of fidelity to the Constitution, is religiously, 
morally, and politically bound to regard them as such. Does anybody suppose that a 
Constitution which acknowledges the sacredness of private property so fully would wan- 
tonly destroy that right, not by any words that are found in it, but by mere implication 
from its general principles? It might as well be asserted that the general principles of 
the Constitution gave Lane and Montgomery a license to steal horses in the valley of 

4. The Supreme Court of the United States has decided the question. After solemn 
argument and careful consideration, that august tribunal has announced its opinion to 
be, that a slaveholder, by going into a Federal Territory ,_ does not lose the title he had 
to his negro in the State from which he came. In former times, a question of constitu- 
tional law once decided by the Supreme Court was regarded as settled by all, except that 
little band of ribald infidels, who meet periodically at Boston, to blaspheme the religion 



and plot rebellion against the laws of the country. The leaders of the so-called Repub- 
lican party have lately been treading close on the heels of their abolition brethren; but 
it is devoutly to be hoped that Mr. Douglas has no intention to follow their example. In 
case he is elected President, he must see the laws faithfully executed. Does he think he 
can keep that oath by fighting the judiciary ? 

5. The legislative history of the country shows that all the great statesmen of former 
times entertained the same opinion, and held it so firmly that they did not even think of 
any other. It was universally taken for granted that a slave remained a slave, and a 
freeman a freeman, in the new Territories, until a change was made in their condition 
by some positive enactment. Nobody believed that a slave might not have been taken 
to and kept in the Northwest Territory, if the ordinance of ll81 or some other'regulation 
had not been made to prohibit it. The Missouri restriction of 1820 was imposed solely 
because it was understood (probably by every member of that Congress) that, in the ab- 
sence of a restriction, slave property would be as lawful in the eye of the Constitution 
above 36° 30'' as below; and all agreed, that the mere absence of a restriction did, in fact, 
make it lawful below the compromise line. 

6. It is right to learn wisdom from our enemies. The Republicans do not point to 
any express provision of the Constitution, nor to any general principle embraced in it, 
nor to any established rule of law, which sustains their views. The ablest men among 
them are driven, by stress of necessity, to hunt for arguments in a code unrevealed, un- 
written, and undefined, which they put above the Constitution or the Bible, and call it 
"higher law." The ultra abolitionists of New England do not deny that the Constitu- 
tion is rightly interpreted by the Democrats, as not interfering against slavery in the 
Territories; but they disdain to obey what they pronounce to be "an agreement with 
death and a covenant with hell." 

"7. What did Mr. Douglas mean when he proposed and voted for the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill repealing the Missouri restriction ? Did he intend to tell southern men that, not- 
withstanding the repeal of the prohibition, they were excluded from those Territories as 
much as ever ? Or did he not regard the right of a master to his slave perfectly good 
whenever he got rid of the pfohibition ? Did he, or anybody else at that time, dream 
that it was necessary to make a positive law in favor of the slaveholder before he could 
go there with safety ? 

' To ask these questions is to answer them. The Kansas-Nebraska bill was not meant 
as a delusion or a snare. It was well understood that the repeal alone of the restriction 
against slavery would throw the country open to everything which the Constitution re- 
cognised as property. 

We have thus given what we believe to be the opinions held by the great body of the 
Demoijjpitic party: namely, that the Federal Constitution does not establish slavery any- 
where in the Union ; that it permits a black man to be either held in servitude or made 
free, as the local law shall decide ; and that, in a Territory where no local law on the 
subject has been enacted, it keeps both the slave and the free negro in the status already 
impressed upon them, until it shall be changed by competent local authority. We have 
seen that this is sustained by the reason of the thing, by a great principle of public law, 
by the words of the Constitution, by a solemn decision of the Supreme Court, hy the 
whole course of our legislation, by the concession of our political opponents, and finally, 
by the most imnortr^nt act in the public life of Mr. Douglas himself. 

Mr. Douglas imputes another absurdity to his opponents when he charges them with 
insisting "that it is the duty of the judiciary to protect and maintain slavery in the 
Territovies, without ant/ law upon the subject." The judge who acts without law acts 
against law ; and surely no sentiment so atrocious as this was ever entertained by any 
portion of the Democratic party. The right of a master to the services of his slave in a 
Territory is not against law nor without law, but in full accordance with law. If tJie 
law be against it, we are all against it. Has not the emigrant to Nebraska a legal right 
to the ox-team, which he bought in Ohio, to haul him over the plains? Is not his title 
as good to it in the Territory as it was in the State where he got it? And what should 
be said of a judge who tells him that he is not protected, or that he is maintained, in the 
possession of his property "without any law upon the subject?" 

II. We had a right to expect from Mr. Douglas at least a clear and intelligible definition 
of his own doctrine. We are disappointed. It is hardly possible to conceive anything 
more difficult to comprehend. We will transcribe it again, and do what can be done to 
analyze it. 

''Those who believe Ihat the Consiitution of the United States neither establishes nor prohibits slavery 
in the States or Territories beyond the power of the people legally to control it, but 'leaves the people 
thereof perfectly free to form and rejulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the 
Constitution of the United States.' " 



ID 

The. Constitution neither establishes nor prohibits slcwery in the States or Territorist. If 
it be meant by this that the Constitution does not, propria vigore, either emancipate any 
man's slave, or create the condition of slavery and impose it on free negroes, but leaves 
the question of every black man's status^ in the Territories as well as in "the States, to be 
determined by the local law, then we admit it, for it is the very same proposition which 
we have been trying to prove. But if, on the contrary, it is to be understood as an as- 
sertion that the Constitution does not permit a master to keep his slave, or a free negro 
to have his liberty, in all parts of the Union where the local law does not interfere to prevent 
it, then the error is not only a very grave one, but it is also absurd and self-contra- 
dictory. 

The Constitution neither establishes nor prohibits slavery in the States or Territories be- 
yond the poiver of the people legally to control it. This is sailing to Point-No-Point 
again. Of course, a subject which is legally controlled, cajinot be beyond the power 
that controls it. But the question is, what constitutes legal control, and when the peo- 
ple of a State or Territorj'- are in a condition to exercise it. 

The Constitution of the United States * * * * leaves the people perfectly 
free, * * * and subject only to the Constitution of the United States. This carries us 
round a full circle, and drops us precisely at the place of beginning. That the Consti- 
tution leaves everybody subject to the Constitution, is most true. We are far from de- 
nying it. We never heard it doubted, and expect we never will. But the statement of 
it proves nothing, defines nothing, and explains nothing. It merely darkens the sub- 
ject, as words without meaning always do. 

But notwithstanding all this circuity of expression and consequent opaqueness of 
meaning in the magazine article of Mr. Douglas, we think we can guess what his opin- 
ions are or will be when he comes to reconsider the subject. He will admit (at least he 
will not undertake to deny) that the status of a negro, whether of servitude or freedom, 
accompanies him wherever he goes, and adheres to him in every part of the Union until 
he meets some local law Avhich changes it. 

It will also be agreed that the people of a State, through their Legislature, and the 
people of a Territory, in the constitution which they may frame preparatory to their 
admission as a State, can regulate and control the condition of the subject black race 
within their respective jurisdictions, so as to make them bond or free. 

But here we come to the point at which opinions diverge. Some insist that no citi- 
zen can be deprived of his property in slaves, or in anything else, except by the provision 
of a State constitution or by the act of a State Legislature; while others contend that 
an unlimited control over private rights may be exercised by a Territorial Legislature 
as soon as the earliest settlements are made. 

So strong are the sentiments of Mr. Douglas in favor of the. latter docti'ine, t1(^ if it 
be not established, he threatens us with Mr. Seward's "irrepressible conflict," which 
shall end only with the universal abolition or the universal dominion of slavery. On 
the other hand, the President, the Judges of the Supreme Court, nearly all the Demo- 
cratic members of Congress, the whole of the party South, and a very large majority 
North, are penetrated with a conviction, that no such power is vested in a Territorial 
Legislature, and that those who desire to confiscate private property of any kind must 
wait until they get a constitutional convention or the machinery of a State government 
into their hands. We venlure to give the following reasons for believing that Mr. 
Douglas is in error: 

The Supreme Court has decided .that a Territorial Legislature has not. the ])ower 
which he claims for it. That alone ought to be sufficient. There can be no law, order, 
or security for any man's rights, unless the judicial authority of the country be upheld. 
Mr. Douglas may do what he pleases with political conventions and party platforms, 
but we trust he will give to the Supreme Court at least that decent respect, which none 
but the most ultra Republicans have yet withheld. 

The right of property is sacred, and the first object of all human government is to 
make it secure. Life is always unsafe where property is not fully protected. This is 
the experience of every people on earth, ancient and modern. To secure private pro- 
perty was a principal object of Magna Charta. Charles I. Jifterwardf-' attempted to vio- 
late it, but the people rose upon him, dragged him to the block, and severed his head 
from his body. At a still later period another monarch for a kindred offence was driven 
out of the country, and died a fugitive and an outcast. Our own Revolution was pro- 
voked by that slight invasion upon the right of property which consisted in the oxac- 
tion of a trifling tax. There is no government in the world, however absolute, which 
would not be disgraced and endangered bv wantonly sacrificing private proi)ertv' even 
to a small extent-. For centuries past such outrages have ceased to be committed iu 
times of peace among civilized nations. 

Slaves are regarded as property in the Southern States. The people of that scctioH 



11 

buy and sell, and cuiry on mU their business, provide for their families, and make their 
wills and divide their inheritances on that assumption. It is manifest to all who know 
them, that no doubts e\'er cross their minds about the rightfulness of holding such pro- 
perty. They believe they have a direct warrant for it, not only in the examples of the 
best men that ever lived, but in the precei)ts of Divine Revelation itself; and they are 
thoroughly satisfied that the relation of master and slave is the only one whith can 
possibly exist there between the white and the black race without ruining both. The 
people of the North may differ from their fellow-citizens of the South on the whole sub- 
ject, but knowing, as M-e all do, that these sentiments are sincerely and honestly enter- 
tained, we cannot wonder that they feel the most unspeakable indignation when any 
attempt is made to interfere with their rights. This sentiment resrdts naturally and ne- 
cessarily from their education and habits of thinking. They cannot help it, any more 
than an honest man in the North can avoid abhorring a thief or housebreaker. 

The jurists, legislators, and people of the Northern States, have always sacredly re- 
spected the right of property in slaves held by their own citizens within their own 
jurisdiction. It is a remarkable fact, very well worth noticing, that no Northern State 
ever passed any law to take a negro from his master. All laws for the abolition of 
slavery have operated only on the unborn descendants of the negro race, and the vested 
rights of masters have not been disturbed in tlie North more than in the South. 

In every nation under heaven, civilized, semi-barbarous, or savage, where slavery has 
existed in any form at all analogous to ours, the rights of the masters to the control of 
their slaves as property have been respected; and on no occasion has any government 
struck at those rights, except as it would strike at other property. Even the British 
Parliament, when it emancipated the West India slaves, though it was legislating for a 
people three thousand miles away, and not represented, never denied either the legal or 
the natural right of the slave owner. Slaves were admitted to be property, and the 
Government acknowledged it by paying their masters one hundred millions of dollars 
for the privilege of setting them free. 

Here, then, is a species of property which is of transcendent importance to the material 
interests of the South — ^which the people of that region think it right and meritorious in 
the eyes of God and good men to hold — 'Which is sanctioned by the general sense of all 
mankind among whom it has existed — which was legal only a short time ago in all the 
States of the Union, ^nd was then treated as sacred by every one of them — which is 
guaranteed to the owner as much as any other property is guaranteed by the Constitu- 
tion; and Mr. Douglas thinks that a Territorial Legislature is competent to take it away. 
We say. No; the supreme legislative power of a sovereign State alone can deprive a man 
of his property. 

ThiSi proposition is so plain, so well established, and so universally acknowledged, 
that any argument in its favor would be a mere waste of words. Mr. Douglas does not 
deny it, and it did not require the thousandth part of his sagacity to see that it was un- 
deniable. He claims for the Territorial governments the right of confiscating private 
property on the ground that those governments are sovereign — have an uncontrollable and 
independent power over all their internal affairs. That is the point which he thinks is to 
split the Democracy and impale the nation. But it is so entirely erroneous, that it 
must vanish into thin air as* soon as it comes- to be examined. 

A Territorial government is merely provisional and temporary. It is created by 
Congress for the necessary preservation of order and the purposes of police. The powers 
conferred upon it are expressed in the organic act, which is the charter of its existence, 
and which may be changed or repealed at the pleasure of Congress. In most of those 
acts the power has been expressly reserved to Congress of revising the Territorial laws, 
and the power to repeal them exists without such reservation. This was asserted in the 
case of Kansas by the most distinguished Senators in the Congress of 1856. The Presi- 
dent appoints the Governor, judges, and all other officers whose appointment is not 
otherwise provided for, directly or indirectly, by Congress. Even the expenses of the 
Territorial government are paid out of the Federal treasury. The truth is, they have no 
attribute of sovereignty about them. The essence of sovereignty consists in having no 
superior. But a Territorial government has a superior in the United States Government, 
upon whose pleasure "it is dependent for its very existence — in whom it lives, and moves, 
^and has its being — -who has made, and can unmake it with a breath. 

Where does this sovereign authority to deprive men of their property come from ? This 
transcendent power, which even despots are cautious about using, and which a constitu- 
tional monarch never exercises — how does it get into a Territorial Legislature? Surely 
it does not drop from the clouds : it will not be contended, that it accompanies the set- 
tlers, or exists in the Territory before its organization. Indeed, it is not to the people, 
but to the government of a Territory, that Mr. Douglas says it belongs. Then Congress 
must give the power at the same time that it gives the Territorial government. But not 



12 

a word of the kind is to be found in any organic act that eyer was framed. It is thus 
that Mr. Douglas's argument runs itself out into nothing. 

But if Congress would -pass a statute expressly to give this sort of power to the Terri- 
torial governments, they still would not have it ; for the Federal Government itself does 
not possess any control over men's property in the Territories. That such power does 
not exist in the Federal Government needs no proof : Mr. Douglas admits it fully and 
freely. It is, besides, established by the solemn decision of Congress, by the assent of 
the Executive, and by the direct ratification of the people acting in their primary capacity 
at the polls. In addition to all this the Supreme Court have deliberately adjudged it to 
be an unalterable and undeniable rule of constitutional law. 

This acknowledgment that Congress has no power, authority, or jurisdiction over 
the subject, literally obliges Mr. Douglas to give up his doctrine, or else to maintain it 
by asserting that a power which the Federal Government does not possess may be given 
by Congress to the Territorial government. The right to abolish African slavery in a Ter- 
ritory is not granted by the Constitution to Congress ; it is withheld, and therefore the 
same as if expressly prohibited. Yet Mr. Douglas declares that Congress may give it to 
the Territories. Nay ; he goes further, and says that thewa?i< of the power in Congress is 
the very reason why it can delegate it — 'the general rule, in his opinion, being that Con- 
gress cannot delegate the powers it possesses, but may delegate such, "and only such, as 
Congress cannot exercise under the Constitution !" By turning to pages 520 and 521, 
the reader will see that this astounding proposition is actually made, not in jest or irony, 
but solemnlyj seriously, and, no doubt, in perfect good faith. On this principle, as Con- 
gress cannot exercise the power to make an ex post facto law, or a law impairing the ob- 
ligation of contracts, therefore it may authorize such laws to be made by the town coun- 
cils of "Washington city, or the levy court of the District. If Congress passes an act to 
hang a man without trial, it is void, and the judges will not allow it to be executed; 
but the power to do this prohibited thing can be constitutionally given by Congress to a 
Territorial Legislature ! 

We admit that there are certain powers bestowed upon the General Government which 
are in their nature judicial or executive. With them Congress can do nothing, except 
to see that they are executed by the proper kind of "officers. It is also true that Con- 
gress has certain legislative powers which cannot be delegated. But Mr. Douglas should 
have known that he was not talking about powers which belonged to either of these 
classes, but about a legislative jurisdiction totally forbidden to the Federal Govern- 
ment, and incapable of being delegated, for the simple reason that it does not con- 
stitutionally exist. • 

Will anybody say that such a power ought, as a matter of policy, or for reasons of 
public safety, to be held by the provisional governments, of the Territories? Un#3ubt- 
edly no true patriot, nor no friend of jastice and order, can deliberately reilect on the 
probable consequences without deprecating them. 

This power over property is the one which in all governments has been most carefully 
guarded, because the temptation to abuse it is always greater than any other. It is there 
that the subjects of a limited monarchy watch their king with the greatest jealousy. No 
republic has ever failed to impose strict limitations upon it. All free people know, that 
if they would remain free, they must compel the government to keep its hands off their 
private property; and this can be done only by tying them up with careful restrictions. 
Accordingly our Federal Constitution declares that "no person shall be deprived of his 
property except by due process of law," and that "private property shall not be taken 
for public use without just compensation." It is universally agreed that this applies 
only to the exercise of the power by the Government of the United States. We are also 
protected against the State governments by a similar provision in the State constitutions. 
Legislative robbery is therefore a crime which cannot be committed either by Congress 
or by any State Legislature, unless it be done in flat rebellion to the fundamental law of 
the land. But if the Territorial governments have this power, then they have it with- 
out any limitation Avhatsoever, and in all the fulness of absolute despotism. They are 
omnipotent in regard to all their internal affiairs, for they are sovereigns, without a con- 
stitution to hold them in check. And this omnipotent sovereignty is to be wielded by a 
few men suddenly drawn together from all parts of America and Europe, unacquainted 
with one another, arid ignorant of their relative rights. But if Mr. Douglas is right, those 
governmente have all the absolute power of the Russian Autocrat. They may take every 
kind of property in mere caprice, or for any purpose of lucre or malice, without process 
of law, and without providing for compehsatioh. The Legislature of Kansas, sitting at 
Lecompton or Lawrence, mky order the miners to give up every ounce of gold that has 
been dug at Pike's Peak. If the authorities of Utah should license a band of marauders 
to despoil the emigrants crossing the Territory, their sovereign right to do so cannot be 
questioned. A new Territory may be organized, which southern men think should be 



13 

devoted to the culture of cotton, while the people of the North are equally certain that 
grazing alone is the proper business to be carried on there. If one party, by accident, 
by force, or by fraud, has a majority in the Legislature, the negroes are taken from the 
planters; and if the other set gains a political victory, it is followed by a statute to plunder 
the graziers of their cattle. Such things cannot be done by the Federal Government, nor 
by the governments of the States; but if Mr. Douglas is not mistaken, they can be done 
by the Territorial governments. . Is it not every way better to wait until the new in- 
habitants know themselves and one another; until the policy of the Territory is settled 
by some experience; and, above all, until the great powers of a sovereign State are re- 
gularly conferred upon them and properly limited, so as to prevent the gross abuses 
which always accompany unrestricted power in human hands ? 

There is another consideration which Mr. Douglas should have been the last man to 
overlook. The present Administration of the Federal Government, and the whole Dem- 
ocratic party throughout the country, including Mr. Douglas, thought that, in the case 
of Kansas, the question of retaining or abolishing slavery should not be determined by 
any representative body without giving to the whole mass of the people an opportunity 
of voting-on it. Mr. Douglas carried it further, and warmly opposed the constitution, 
denying even its validity, because other and undisputed parts of it had not also been 
submitted to a popular vote. Now he is willing that the whole slavery dispute in any 
Territory, and all questions that can arise concerning the rights of the people to that or 
other property, shall be decided at once by a Territorial Legislature, without any sub- 
mission at all. Popular sovereignty in the last Congress meant the freedom of the 
people from all the restraints of law and order — now it means a government which shall 
rule them with a rod of iron. It swings like a pendulum from one side clear over to the 
other. 

Mr. Douglas's opinions on this subject of sovereign Territorial governments are very 
singular; but the reasons he has produced to support them are infinitely more curious 
still. For instance, he shows that Jefferson once introduced into the old Congress of the 
Confederation a plan for the government of the Territories, calling them by the name of 
"New States," but not making them anything like sovereign or independent States; and 
though this was not embodied in the Constitution, nor adopted by any subsequent Con- 
gress, nor ever afterwards referred to by Jefferson himself, yet Mr. Douglas argues upon 
it as if it had somehow become a part of our fundamental law. 

Again: He says that the States gave to the Federal Government the same powers 
which as colonies they had been willing to concede to the British Government, and kept 
those which as colonies they had claimed for themselves. If he will read a common 
school history of the Revolution, and then look at Art. I, sec. 8, of the Constitution, he 
wiU|||»d the two following fact? fully established: 1. That the Federal Government has 
"power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises;" and 2. That the colonies 
before the Revolution utterly refused to be taxed by Great Britain; and so far from con- 
ceding the power, fought against it for seven long years. 

There is another thing in the article which, if it had not come from a distinguished 
Senator, and a very upright gentleman, would have been open to some imputation of 
unfairness. He quotes the President's message, and begins in the middle of a sentence. 
He professes to give the very words, and makes Mr. Buchanan say: "That slavery exists 
in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States." What Mr. Buchanan did 
say was a very different thing. It was this: "It has been solemnly adjudged by the 
highest judicial tribunal known to our laws, that slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of 
the Constitution of the United States." Everybody knows that by treating the Bible 
in that way you can prove the non-existence of God. 

The argumentuvi ad hominem is not fair, and we do not mean to use it, Mr. Douglas 
has a right to change his opinions whenever he pleases. But we quote him as we would 
any other authority equally high in favor of truth. We can prove by himself that 
every proposition he lays down in Harpers' Magazine is founded in error. Never before 
has any public man in America so completely revolutionized his political opinions in the 
course of eighteen months. We do not deny that the change is heartfelt and con- 
scientious. We only insist that he formerly. stated his propositions much more clearly, 
and sustained them with far greater ability and better reasons, than he does now. 

When he took a tour to the South, at the beginning of last winter, he made a speech 
at New Orleans, in which he announced to the people there that he and his friends in 
Illinois accepted the Bred Scott decision, regarded slaves as property, and fully admitted the 
right of a Southern man to go into any Federal territory with his slave, and to hold him 
there as other property is held. 

In 1849 he voted in the Senate for what was called Walker's amendment, by which it 
was proposed to put all the internal affairs of California and New Mexico under the 
domination of the President, giving him almost unlimited power, legislative, judicial, and 



14 

executive, ay^x \h% internal affain o'i \\\q^q Territories. (See 20th Cong.., p, .) Un- 
doubtedly tliis was a strange wa}- of treating sovereignties. If Mr. Douglas is right noAv, 
he i¥as guilty then of most atrocious usurpation. 

Utah is as much a sovereign State as any other Territory, and as perfectly entitled to 
enjoy the right of self-government. On the 12th of June, 185*7, Mr. Douglas made a 
speech about Utah, at Springfield, Illinois, in which he expressed his opinion strongly in 
favor of the absolute and unconditional repeal of the organic act, blotting the Territorial gov- 
ernment out of existe?ice, and putting the people under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction 
of the United States, like a fori, arsenal, dock-yard, or magazine. He does not seem to 
have had the least idea then that he was proposing to extinguish a sovereignty, or to 
trample upon the saered rights of an independent people. 

The report which he made to the Senate, in 1856, on the Topeka constitution, enunciates 
a very different doctrine from that of the magazine article. It is true that the language 
is a little cloudy, but no one can understand the following sentences to signify that the 
Territorial governments have sovereign power to take away the property of the in- 
habitants: 

"The sovereignty of a Territory remains in abeyance, suspended in the United States, in trust for the 
people until they shall be admitted into the Union as a State. In the mean time they are admitted to en- 
joy and exercise all the rights and privileges of self-government, in subordination to the Constitution of 
the United States, and in obedience to the organic law passed by Congress in pursuance of that, in- 
strument. These rights and privileges are all derived from the Constitution, through the act of Congress, 
and must be exercised and enjoyed in subjection to all the limitations and restrictions which that Con- 
stitution imposes." 

The letter he addressed to a Philadelphia meeting, in February, 1858, is more explicit, 
and, barring some anomalous ideas concerning the abeyance of the power and the sus- 
pension of it in trust, it is clear enough: 

" Under our Territorial system, it requires sovereign power lo ordain and establish constitutions and 
governments. While a Territory may and should enjoy all the rights of self-government, in obedience to 
Us organic law, it is not a sovereign power. The sovereignty of a Territory remains in abeyance, sus- 
pended in the United States, in trust for thepeople when they become a State, and camwt be withdraumfrom 
the han4* of the trustee and vested in thepeople of a Territory without the consent of Congress." 

The report which he made in the same month, from the Senate Committee on Terri- 
tories, is equally distinct, and rather more emphatic against his new doctrine: 

" This committee in their reports have always held that a Territory is not a sovereign power; that the 
sovereignty of a Territory is in abeyance, suspended in the United States, in trust for the people when 
ihey become a State; that the United States, as trustees, cannot be divested of the sovereignty, nor the 
Territory be invested with the right to assume and exercise it, without the consent of Congress. If the 
proposition be true that sovereign power nlone can institute goverjiments, and that the sovereia||y of a 
Territory is in abeyance, suspended in the United States, in trust for the people when they becomwfstate, 
and that the sovereignty cannot be divested from the hands of the trustee without the assent of Congress, 
it follows, as an inevitable consequence, that the Kansas Legislature did not and could not confer upon 
the Lecompton convention the sovereign power of ordaining a constitution for the people of Kansas, in 
place of the organic act passed by Congress." 

The days are past and gone when Mr. Douglas led the fiery assaults of the opposition 
in the Lecompton controversy. Then it was his object to prove that a Territorial Legis- 
lature, so far from being omnipotent, was powerless even to authorize an election of del- 
egates to consider about their own affairs. It was asserted that a convention chosen . 
under a Territorial law could make and ordain no constitution which would be legally 
binding. Then a Territorial government was to be despised and spit upon, even when 
it invited the people to come forward and vote on a question of the most vital import- 
ance to their own interests. But now all things have become new. The Lecompton 
dispute has "gone glimmering down the dream of things that were," and Mr. Douglas 
produces another issue, brand new from the mint. The old opinions are not worth a 
rush to his present position : it must be sustained by opposite principles and reasoi ing 
totally different. The Legislature of Kansas was not sovereign when it authorized a 
convention of the people to assemble and decide what sort of a constitution they would 
have; but when it strikes at their rights of property, it becomes not only a sovereign, 
but a sovereign without limitation of power. We have no idea that Mr. Douglas is not 
perfectly sincere, as he was also when he took the other side. The impulses engendered 
by the heat of controversy have driven him* at different times in opposite directions. 
We do not charge it against him as a crime, but it is true that these views of his, incon- 
sistent as they are with one another, always happen to accord with the interests of the 
opposition, always give to the enemies of the Constitution a certain amount of ' 'aid and 
comfort," and always add a little to the rancorous and malignant hatred with which the 
Abolitionists regard the Government of their own country. 

Yes; the Lecompton issue which Mr. Douglas made upon the Administration two years 
ago is done, and the principles on which we were then opposed are abandoned. We 



15 

are no longer required to fight for the lawfulness of a Territorial election held under 
Territorial authority. But another issue is thrust upon us, to "disturb the harmony and 
threaten the integrity" of the party. A few words more, (perhaps of tedious repeti- 
tion, ) by way of showing what that new issue is, or probably will be, and we are 
done. 

We insist that an emigrant going into a Federal Territory retains his title to the 
property which he took with him, until there is some prohibition enacted by lawful au- 
thority. Mr. Douglas cannot deny this in the face of his New Orleans speech, and the 
overwhelming reasons which support it. 

It is an agreed point among all Democrats that Congress cannot interfere with the 
rights of property in the Territories. 

It is also acknowledged that the people of a new State, either in their constitution or 
in an act of their Legislature, may make the negroes within it free, or hold them in a 
state of servitude. 

But we believe more. "We believe in submitting to the law, as decided by the Supreme 
Court, which declares that a Territorial Legislature cannot, any more than Congress, 
interfere with rights of property in a Territory — that the settlers of a Territory are 
bound to wait until the sovereign power is conferred upon them, with proper limitations, 
before they attempt to exercise the most dangerous of all its functions. Mr. Douglas 
denies this, and there is the new issue. 

Why should such an issue be made at such a time? What is there now to excuse any 
friend of peace for attempting to stir up the bitter waters of strife? There is no actual 
difficulty about this subject in any Territory. There is no question upon it pending be- 
fore Congress or the country. We are called upon to make a contest, at once unneces- 
sary and hopelees, with the judicial authority of the nation. We object to it. We will 
not obey Mr. Douglas when he commands us to assault the Supreme Court of the United 
States. We believe the court to be right, and Mr. Douglas wrong. 



J^PPENDIX. 



Another edition of these ' 'Observations' ' being called for, an opportunity is afforded 
of adding some thoughts suggested by the attempted reply of Mr. Douglas, and by some 
criticisms of a different kind which have appeared in other quarters. 

Mr. Douglas charges us with entertaining the opinion that "all the States of the 
Union" may confiscate private property — a doctrine which he denounces as a most 
"wicked and dangerous heresy." He championizes the inviolability of property, and 
invokes the fiery indignation of the public upon us for ascribing to the States any power 
of taking it away. Now mark how plain a tale will put him down. 

There is no such thing and nothing like it on all these pages, from the first to the last. 
Blr. Douglas was merely flourishing his lance in the empty air. He had no ground for 
his assertion, except a most unauthorized inference of his own from our denial that the 
power existed in the Territories. The Territories must wait till they become sovereign 
States before they can confiscate property; that was our position. Therefore, says the 
Jogic of Mr. Douglas, all the States in the Union may do it now. What right had he 
to make imputations of heresy founded upon mere inference^ when our opinion on the very 
•point was directly expressed in words so plain that mistake was impossible? The follow- 
ing sentences occur on page 12: 

"AH free people know, that if they would remain free, they must compel the government to keep lis 
hands off their private propeity; and this can be done only by tying them up with careful restrictions. Ac- 
cordingly our Federal Constitution declares that 'no person shall be deprived of his pro-perty ejccept by 
due process of law,' and that 'private property shall not be taken for public use wtthout just compensa- 
tion.' It is universally agreed that this applies only to the exercise of the power by the Government of 
the United States. We are also protected against the State governments by a similar provision in the 
State constitutions. Legislative robbery is therefore a crime which cannot be committed either by Con- 
gress or by any State lieglslature, unless it be done in flat rebellion to the fundamental law of the 
land." 

The close of the same paragraph shows why it was important that no attempt should 
be made to exercise such power by a Territory: 

"Is it not every way better to wait until the new inhabitants know themselves and one another; until 
the policy of the Territory is settled by some experience; and, above all, until the great powers of a sove- 
reiSn Stale are regularly conferred upon them and properly Umited, so as to prevent the gross abuses 
which always accompany unrestricted power in human hands?" 

Mr. Douglas certainly read these passages, for he borrowed a phrase from them, and 
put it into his own speech.' He ought to have understood them. If he both read and 
understood them, why did he allege that this pamphlet favored the dangerous heresy re- 
ferred to? I*t the charity which "thinketh no, evil" find the best excuse for him it can. 

That the government of a sovereign State, unrestricted and unchecked by any con- 
stitutional prohibition, would have power to confiscate private property, even without 
compensation to the owner, is a proposition which will scarcely be denied by any one 
who has mastered the primer of political science. Sovereignty, which is the supreme 
authority of an independent State or government, is in its nature irresponsible and 
absolute. It cannot be otherwise, since it has no superior by whom it can be called to 
account. ' Mere moral abstractions or theoretic principles of natural justice do not limit 
the legal authority of a sovereign. No government ought to violate justice; _ but any 
supreme government, whose hands are entirely free, can violate it with impunity. For 
these reasons it is that the Saxon race have been laboring, planning, and fighting, dur- 
ing seven hundred years, for Great Charters, Bills of Rights, and Constitutions, to limit 
the sovereignty of all the governments they have lived under. Our ancestors in the 
old country, as well as in America, have wasted their money and blood in vain to estab- 
lish constitutional governments, if it be true that a government without a constitution 
is not capable of doing injustice. They knew better than that. They understood very 
well that a sovereign government, no matter by whom its power is wielded,, may do 
what wrong it pleases, and "bid its will avouch the deed." 

Now, what is the constitutional prohibition which can anywhere be found to restrain 
<Toi)ular Sovereignty in the Territories" (if there be such a thing there) from confis- 



eating any citizen's property? There is none. A Territory has no constiiulioQ of its 
own; and nobodj' would be absurd enough to say, that it is governed by tlie constitu- 
tion of another State. Will it be said, that the provision in the Federal Constitution, 
which forbids the taking of private property without compensation, can be used so as to 
restrain a Territorial sovereignty? Certainly not. The Supreme Court have decided, (in 
Barron vs. The City of Baltimore, 1 Peters, 243) that the clause referred to applies ex- 
clusively to the exercise of the power by the Federal Government. The rule was so laid 
down by Chief Justice Marshall. It was concurred in by the whole Court; and its cor- 
rectness has never been denied or doubted by any judge, lawyer, or statesman from the 
time of the decision to this day. If, therefore, there be a sovereignty in the Territories, 
it is sovereignty unlimited by any constitutional interdict. This implies a power in the 
Territories infinitely greater than that of any other government in all North America. 

The simple and easj^ solution of all this difficulty is furnished by the Supreme Court, 
and adopted by the Democratic party as the true principle governing the subject. It is 
this: That the Territories are not sovereignties, but tlieir governments are public cor- 
porations, established by Congress to manage the local affairs of the inhabitants, like 
the government of a city, established by a State Legislature. Indeed, there is probably 
no city in the United States whose powers are not larger than those of a Federal Terri- 
tory. The people of a city elect their own mayor, and, directly or indirectly, appoint 
all their municipal officers. But the President appoints the Chief Executive of a Terri- 
tory, as well as the judges. He niay send them there from any part of the Union, and 
in point of fact they are generally strangers to the inhal^itants when first chosen. They 
are in no way responsible to the Territory or its people, but to the Federal Government 
alone, and they may be removed whenever the President thinks propei-. The Territorial 
legislature is sometimes (and only sometimes) cleclcd by Die people; but why? Because 
Congress has been pleased to permit it by the organic act. The power that gives this 
privilege could withhold it too. It is always coupled with restrictions and regulation.* 
which could never be imposed on a sovereignty by any authority except its own. The 
organic act generally prescribes the qualifications of voters, and divides the territory 
into districts; and the action of the legislative body itself is controlled by the veto 
power of a Governor appointed by the President and removable at his pleasure. It is 
too clear for possible controversy, that a Territory is not a sovereign power, but a sub- 
ordinate dependency. It cannot deprive a man of his property without due process of 
law, or without just compensation, for two reasons: 1. It has no sovereign power of its 
own; and, 2. The Federal Government, being forbidden by the Constitution to exercise 
such power itself, cannot bestow it on a Territory. The Constitution of the United 
States protects a man's property from being plundered by a Territorial legislature, just 
as a State constitution protects it from robbery by the authorities of a city corporation. 

It should be noted that when this question was before the Sui)renie Court of the United 
States, there was some difference of opinion among the judges, on the question whether 
Congress might, or might not, legislate for a Territory in such niauuer as to take away 
t!ie right of property in slaves. A majority of two-thirds or more held the negative; 
and Mr. Douglas admits that the majority was clearly right. But no member of the 
court expressed the opinion, nor was it even thought of by the counsel, that the Terri- 
tories had any such inherent and natural power of their own. Indeed, there is no judge 
of any grade or character, nor any writer on law or government, who has ever asserted 
or given the least countenance to this notion oipojrulnr or any other kind oi sovereignty in 
the Territories. 

Some trouble will be saved in this part of the argument, hy the fact that, since the 
first publication of this pamphlet, Mr. Douglas denies and repudiates all claim of soTe- 
reignty for the Territories. He even says that lie never did regard them as sovereigns. 
His words spoken at Wooster, Ohio, and written out by himself, are these: 

"Inkvkr claimed that Territorial governments toere sovereign, or that the TerrilorieK were soverH'n 
powers." 

Of course this is not to be understood as a mere naked denial that he had previously 
used those very words. We have no right to charge Mr. Douglas with adopting the ex- 
ploded system of morality, which allows a man to cover up the truth under an equivo- 
que. We are bound to take his denial fairly, as meaning that he never thought the Ter- 
ritories had the rights and powers which belong to sovereign governments. Let us see 
how this assertion will stand the test of investigation. 

We do not deny that the article in Harper is extremely difficult to understand. Its 
unjointed thoughts, loose expression, and illogical reasoning, have covered it with 
shadows, clouds, and darkness. But we will not admit that it has no meaning at all. 
It is scarcely possible to mistake the general purpose of the author. That purpose un- 
doubtedly was to prove that the States and Territories, so far as concerns their internal 



18 

affairs, have political rights and powers which are precisely equal. In fact, he declares, 
in 80 manj words, that Pennsylvania and Kansas are subordinate to the Constitution 
"in the tame ma.nner and to the same extent.^' He not only levels the Territories up to the 
States, but levels the States down to the Territories. If Kansas has slavery by virtue of 
the Constitution, he insists that, by the same reasoning, Pennsylvania has it too. Now 
we know Pennsylvania to be a sovereign; and if Kansas be her equal, then Kansas must 
necessarily be a sovereign also. 

But look at the last sentence, which is the grand summary of his whole doctrine : 

"The ■principle under our political system is, that euery distinct political community. loyal to the Consliiu 
lion and the Union, is entitled to all the riglits, privilef>es, ajid immunities of self government, in respecl lo 
their lueal concerns and internal polity, subject only to the Constitution of the United :3tate8.'> 

Here the States and Territories are placed on a footing of perfect equality. There is 
no distinction made between them. If 'the States are sovereign, so are the Territories. 
Besides, the "rights, privileges, and immunities," which he describes, as pertaining to 
every distinct political community, (that is, to both States and Territories,) are sove- 
reign rights, and nothing else. Any community which has the independent and uncon- 
trollable right of self-government, with respect to its local concerns and internal polity,' 
must be, quoad hoc, a sovereign. 

Again : Mr. Douglas, in his speech at Cincinnati, made so lately as the 9th September 
last, used the following, unmistakable language : 

"Bxamine the billa and search thp rerordH, and! you will find that the great principle which nnderlies 
Ihose measures, (the compnimise of 1850,) is the right of the people of each State and each Territory, 
WHILE A TERRITORY, lo DECIDE the slavery question for themselves." 

Is not this claiming sovereignty for the Territories ? Can the slavery question be rf«- 
«'rf«cf without legislating upon the right of property ? And can a subordinate govern- 
ment do that ? If the Territories have power to decide whether a man shall keep his 
property or not, where did the power come from? Surely not from Congress, through 
the organic acts. They must have it, then, upon what Mr. Douglas calls a great princi- 
ple, and that great principle can be nothihg else than "Sovereignty in the Territories." 
Thus it is seen that Mr. Douglas makes a tour to the West, and on his way back he con- 
tradicts what he said as he went out. 

There are but two sides to this controversy : The Territories are either sovereign 
powers by natural and inherent right, or else they are political corporations, owing aU 
the authority they possess to the acts of Congress Avhich create them. It is not possible 
to believe that Mr. Douglas wrote thirty-eight columns in a magazine to prove the truth 
of the latter doctrine. Nobody but himself and his followers were ever accused of deny- 
ing it. If he did not deny it, and plant himself upon the opposing ground of sovereign- 
ty in the Territories, then there was no dispute, or cause of division, between him and 
the Democratic party ; and he has, consequently, been engaged in raising an excitement 
about nothing; trying to toss the ocean of politics into a temptest, without having even 
a feather to waft, or a fly to drown. 

But that is not all. Mr. Douglas has continually used the very word sovereignty 
with reference to the Territories. This sovereignty in the Territories he has asserted and 
re-asserted so often, fhat the phrase is in great danger of becoming ridiculous by the 
mere frequency with which he repeats it. For many months he has not made a speech 
or written a letter for the newspapers on any other subject. It heads his elaborate arti- 
cle in Harper ; it is vociferated into the public ear from the stump ; and it stares at us 
in great capitals from the handbills which call the people to his meetings. Unless it be 
acknowledged, he predicts the hopeless division of the party, and even threatens to re- 
fuse its nomination for the Presidency. Now, all at once, the subject-matter of the whole 
controversy is admitted to be a nonentity. He "checks his thunder in mid-volley," 
and owns that there is no sovereignty in a Territory any more than in a British colony. 
Other persons may have ridden their hobbies as hard as Mr. Douglas ; but since the be- 
ginning of the world no man ever dismounted so suddenlj''. 

' 'Sovereignty in the Territories, ' ' of which we have heard so much^ is generally, if 
not always, coupled by Mr. Douglas with the prefix of "JPopular." This last word ap- 
pears to be used for the mere sake of the sound, and without any regard whatever to the 
sense. It does not mean that the people or inhabitants of the Territories have any su- 
preme power independent of the laws, or above the regularly constituted legal authori- 
ties. They cannot meet together, count themselves, and say : "We are so many hun- 
dreds or so many thousands, and we must therefore be obeyed ; the law is in our voice, 
and not in the rules which our Government has made to control us." Something like 
this view was vaguely entertaiaed in times when the Lecompton constitution was op- 
posed. But that is gone by. -Mature reflection has left wioSocrac?/ without a defender. 



19 

Nohody now insists that the right to make or annul laws and constitutions can lie exer- 
cised in voluntary mass meetings or at elections unauthorized by law. Mr. Douglas 
himself says : "It can orily be exercised where the inhabitants are sufficient to constituff a 
government, and capable of performing its various fnnctio7is and duties — a ftict to bo ascer- 
tained and determined by Congress." The sovereignty, then, is in tlie government, if it 
be anywhere. But Mr. Douglas now says it is not there ; and he is right. That being 
the case, where is it ? 

When Mr. Douglas, in his speech at Wooster, was repudiating and denying the doc- 
trine of sovereignty in the Territories, and resuming his old position, that they are not 
sovereign powers, it would have been well to fall back upon something a little more in- 
telligible than his reports to the Senate, or his anti-Lecomi)ton letter to Philadelphia. 
Here is the way he describes sovereignty in his report of 165(3 : 

"ThR sovi'n^iijnty of^ Territory remnins in abeyance, stinpnuied in Ik' United States, in trust forth* 
people until (liey sliall be ailmittud into the Union as a State." 

What do these words mean, and in what possible way can they help us to a knowledge 
of the matter under consideration ? Abeyance is good law French, and signifies the pe- 
culiar condition of an estate after one tenant has died, and before his successor is com- 
petent to take it. But what application can it have, even by analogy, to a sovereignty 
which never existed ? It seems, too, that this sovereignty is suspended in the United 
States — that is, hu7iff or dependent from something in the United States, and not independ- 
ent like every other sovereignty under heaven. But the most marvellous part of the 
business is, that one goTernment which is sovereign is represented as a trustee of the 
Bovereignty of another government which is admitted noMo be sovereign. This is the 
talk of a man who has too much learning. These technical terms of th» common law 
were invented by English conveyancers and real property lawyers, for the ptirpose of 
expressing the artificial relations which men sometimes bear to lands, tenements, and 
hereditaments ;- but they are wholly inapplicable to such a subject as the sovereignty of 
a State or nation. We might as well call Territorial sovereignty a contingent remain- 
der, an executory devise, or a special fee tail. 

There is some confusion of ideas on another subject'. Mr. Dc-uglas and liis disciples 
ascribe to certain Democrats (to the President among others) the belief tliat the Consti- 
tution esfab!is/>es slavery in the Territories ; and, to sustain this accusation, they quote 
from a message in which the e.xistence of slavery in the Territories by virtue of the Con- 
ttitution is asserted on the authority of the Supreme Court. Now we are in the wrong, 
if the expression that a thing exists by virtue of the Constitution be equivalent to saying 
that the Constitution has established it. There is not only a substantial, but a wide and 
most obvious difference. The Constitution does not establish Christianity in the Terri- 
tories; but Christianity exists there by virtue of the Consiitution ; because when a 
Christian moves into a Territory, he cannot be prevented from taking his religion along 
with him; nor can he afterwards be legally molested for making its principles the rule 
of his faith and practice. 

® We have said, and we repeat, that a man does not forfeit his right of property in a 
slave by migrating with him to a Territory. The title which the owner acquired in the 
State from whence he came must be respected in his new doinicil as it was in the old, 
until it is legally and constitutionally divested. The proposition is undeniable. But 
the absurd inference which some persons have drawn from it is not true, that the master 
also takes with him the judicial remedies which were furnished him at the place where 
his title was acquired. Whether the relation of master and slave exists or not, is a 
question which must be determined according to the law of the State in which it wag 
created; but the respectire rights and obligations of the parties must be protected and 
enforced by the law pi-evailing at the place where they are supi)osed to be violated. 
This is also true with respect to rights of every other kind. Two merchants living in 
the same town may buy their goods in different States. Can it be doubted that the title 
of each depends on the law of the State where he made his purchase? But the law of 
larceny and trespass is the law of a forum common to both, and must necessarily be the 
same. The validity of a man's marriage is tried by the standard of the law which pre- 
vailed in the country where it was solemnized; but if he beats his wife, she must seek 
protection from the law of the place where they live. 

Some of Mr. Douglas's partisans, and nearly all of the anti-slavery opposition, con- 
tend that property in slaves cannot exist so as to entitle it to the protection of the same 
laws which secure the right of property in other things. For their benefit we shall 
briefly show how impossible it is to admit the distinction which they insist upon. 

What is propertj'? Whatever a person may legally appropriate to his own exclusive 
use and transfer to another by sale or gift. By the laws of the southern States, negroes 
are within this definition, and the Constitution of the United States not only recognise* 



20 

the validitj of the State laws, but it aids in carrying them out. The framers of the Con- 
stitution, seeing that slaves were liable to one danger from which all other property was 
exempt, namely, that of being seduced away by the offer, in other States, of legal shelter 
from the pursuit of their owners, agreed that the Federal Government should guarantee 
their re-delivery to the exclusive possession of the persons entitled to them as proprietors. 
The law, then, of the States in which they are and the Constitution of the Federal Govern- 
ment, to all legal intents and purposes, pronounce that slaves are property. Beaten 
here, our adversaries convert it from a legal to a theological question. But when they 
appeal from the Constitution to the Bible, they are equally dissatisfied with the decision 
they get. Nothing is left them but that "Higher Law," which has no sanction nor no 
authority, Divine or human. Those who reject the Constitution must be content to follow 
guides who are stone-blind. They are men who aspire to be wise above what is written, 
and thereby press themselves down to the extremest point of human folly. They turn 
their backs on all the light which the world has, or can have; they go forth into outer 
darkness, and wander perpetually in a howling wilderness of error. '' 

But Mr. Douglas is guiltless of this heresy at least. He concedes that slaves are pre- 
cisely like other property, so far as regards the legal remedies and constitutional rights 
of the owner. E^e professes to take the fundamental laAv of the land for his guide upon 
that point. Let his practice, then, correspond with his faith; let bim "walk worthy of 
the vocation wherewith he is called;" let him make no more appeals to popular prejudice 
for a sovereignty which does not exist; above all things, let him never, by the slightest 
suggestion, encourage any Territorial government to undermine the rights of the citizen 
by legislation which is "unfriendly" to the security of either property or life. We must 
not palter with the Constitution in a double sense, but obey it, support it, defend it, earn- 
estly and faithfully, like men who believe in it and love it. Whosoever attempts to 
trifle with its principles, or weaken the obligation of its guarantees, will find sooner Or 
later that he has fixed a stain upon his political character which ' 'there is not rain 
enough in the sweet heavens", to wash out. 



REJOINDER TO SENATOR DOUGLASES LAST. 



As briefly as possible, eschewing all matters personal or (]uasi {)ersonal, and without 
introduction or pretace, I shall notice the only points in Mr. Douglas's last pamphlet 
that are worthy of attention. 

He denies that his views on "Sovereignty in the Territories," as expressed in Har- 
per's Magazine, are inconsistent with those of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case. 
I aver, on the contrary, that he could not have made such a denial if he had not totalb 
misunderstood either his own opinions or those of the court; for they are in direct con- 
flict with one another. A plain issue of fiict is thus made up between us, and it is tria- 
ble by the record. Let us look at it. 

The court, after demonstrating in the clearest manner that the Federal Govrnunent^ 
had no authority or jurisdiction to abolish slavery in a Territory, proceeded to say \ 
what Mr. Douglas himself has quoted on page 530 of the magazine: * \ 

"And if Congress itself cannot do tftis— if it is l)eyond ihe powers conferrf^d on the Federal fiovern 
nieni — it will be admitted, we presiitiie, that it could, not authorize a Territorial government to exercise 
them. Ii could confer no power on any local government established by ilis aulhurity to violate the pro- 
vHions of the Constitution." 

This is in sub.stance the very identical proposition which Mr. Douglas, on page 520, 
, pronounces to be "as plausible as it is fallacious." He adds, that "the reverse of it is 
true as a f/eneral rule;" and then supports his assertion by another assertion the most 
singular that ever was placed on record by any man having the slightest pretensions to 
a knowledge of our government; namely, that Congress could confer upon a Territory 
such powers, "and ont.y such as Congress cannot exercise under the Constitution!" 
There is the record: and I am perfectly sure that no tolerably sensible man in this na- 
tion, except Mr. Douglas, will doubt for a moment, that it places him and the court in 
an attitude of perfect antagonism. 

But then he says he defended the court in more than one hundred speeches. Ft can 
scarcely be necessary to say, that arguments on a question of law are valued according 
to their iceight, and not according to their nvmber. The count of Mr. Douglas's 
speeches on the Illinois stump was, no doubt, faithfully kept; but, when he claims credit 
for their orthodoxy, he must show something more than scores on a tally paper. He 
might as well come, with his Harper article in one hand and a two-foot rule in the 
other, ready to demonstrate his concurrence with the court by showing that it contains 
two thousand eight hundred and eighty square inches of surface. Without reference to 
to the superficial measure of one or the carefully enumerated repetitions of the other, we 
may safely presume that the quality of his spoken arguments was not better than that of 
his written essay; and in this latter Mr. Douglas not only opposes the court, but, what 
is much worse, he charges it with holding his opinions. This is a deep and serious in- 
jury; for how would the judges of that great tribunal be able to look their country in 
the face, if they ImA ever said, that a power over private property, forbidden to the 
Federal Government, might be delegated by Congress to a Territorial legislature? 

The whole dispute (as for as it is a doctrinal dispute) between Mr. Douglas and the 
Democratic party lies substantially in these two propositions: 1. The owner of a slave 
may remove with him, as with other property, into a Territory without forfeiting his 
title. 2. The government of a Territory has and can have no power to deprive the in- 
habitants of their private property, whether in slaves or anything else. 

I. The "axiomatic principle of public law" that a man, going from one country into 
another, retains in the latter (if there be no conflicting law) all the rights of property 
which he had in the former, is so universallj' acknowledged, that nobody thinks worth 
while to prove it. At all times, in all countries, and by all persons, it is taken and acted 
upon as a postulate. I certainly had not, until very lately, the remotest suspicion that 
any man on this side of China would doubt it. All the intercourse between the States, 
and with foreign countries,. depends on it. Without it, the traveller must lose all right 
to his trunk whenever he passes the border of his own State; and when a foreigner lands 
among us, he may be robbed of his purse by the first loafer that meets hiin on tlie 
wharf. Importation and exportation would cease, and the commerce of the whole world 
would suddenly come to a dead pause, if a man might not prove his right to personal 



22 

property in one country by showing that he was the legal owner of it in another from 
whence he brought it. This principle is to the commercial world what the law of gravi- 
tation is to the material universe; it cannot be abolished without hurling the whole 
system into ruin. 

Mr. Douglas does not admit this "axiomatic principle," nor does he deny it, though 
he writes a great deal about it. But he is unusually clear and explicit in his asserlion 
that "it has no application to, and does not include, slavery." I insist that he is ut- 
terly mistaken. Slaves being recognised as property by the Constitution, and made so 
by the local laws of those States which have power to regulate their condition, there can 
be no constitutional or legal reason given for excepting them from the operation of a 
rule which applies to property in general. Mr. Douglas's argument in favor of such 
discrimination between slaves and other property is a total failure, and no plausible ar- 
gument can ever be made on that side, except one founded on the "higher law," or the 
doctrines taught by that new religion, of which Saint Ossawattomie is the apostle and 
the martyr. 

It has never been held, that any kind of property can be introduced into a State or 
Territory whose laws oppose the owner's right : a liquor-dealer in New York cannot 
take brandy to Portland, if the Maine law forbids it. So, a relation formed in one 
country must cease when the parties go to another, in which such a relation is illegal; a 
Turk may be the lawful husband of many wives in Constantinople; but he cannot keep 
them, if he changes his residence to Western Europe or to the American States. So it 
undoubtedly is with slavery. No man in his senses ever contended that a Virginian, 
going to live in Pennsylvania, could take his slaves with him, .and keep them there, in 
spite of the Pennsylvania law. But if he goes to Kentucky, where the law is not opposed 
to slavery, it is equally clear that he retains all the dominion over them which he had 
before his removal. The right of property, no matter where it accrued, continues to be 
sacred and inviolable until it comes in collision with a law which divests it. In a Fed- 
eral Territory there can be no such collision with the right of a slaveholder, because 
there is no conflicting law there on that subject. 

All authority, as well as all reason and common sense, is in favor of this doctrine. It 
was the very point of the Dred Scott case^ Dred was the slave of Dr. Emerson, in Missouri, 
and was taken by his master to a Federal Territory, where there was no valid law which 
either expressly authorized or expressly interdicted the holding of slaves. 'The court 
held, that Dred Scott's status in Missouri was not changed nor the right of his master 
divested, by his removal to the Territory. The principle was applied to the case of a 
slave, just as it would be applied to any other property. It is half a score of times re- 
peated' by the judges, that there can be no distinction between slave and other property. 
The other authorities to the same point are conclusive and overwhelming. Any person 
who desires to see all the learning of the subject may consult ^'Cobh on Slavery ^^^ where 
it is arranged in an order so lucid, and discussed with so much ability, that nothing 
further need be desired. 

There is one other authority directly to the point which I cite, not only for its own 
intrinsic value, but because it will probably be esteemed very highly by Mr. Douglas 
himself. It is an extract from a speech of his own, delivered in the Senate on the 23d 
of February last. The legal equality of slave property and oiher property was then as- 
serted by him in the following fashion : 

" Slaves, according to thai decision, [the Dred Scott decision,] beiiiB property, stand on an equal footine 
with, all other property. There is just aa much obligation on the part of the Territorial Ipijislature toprotect 
slaves as every other species of property — as there is to protect horses, cattle, dryfoodt, Hquort, <J-c If they 
have a right to discriminate as to the one, they have as to the other ; and whether they have not the power 
of discrimination ornot is for the court to decide, if any one disputes it. * * If there is no power of di« 
crimination on other speciet of property, there it none as to slaves If there is a power of diseriniination 
as to other property— and I think there is— then it applies to slave property In olhe.rwofd^jsUive property 
ig on an equal footing with all other property." 

In the face of all this, in the teeth of his own words so recently uttered, in defiance of 
the-Supreme Court and all judicial authority, Mr. Douglas now declares that the "axi- 
omatic principle of public law," which enables a man to remove his property from placfe 
to place, wherever the local law does not forbid its coming, is not applicable to slaves. 
To sustain himself in making this distinction, he produces two short passages, both of 
which have been picked out of one paragraph in Story's "Conflict of Laws." These 
passages (will the reader believe it?) merely show that a ^ave becomes free when taken 
to a country where slavery is not tolerated by law ! Judge Story cites cases decided^ in 
England, France, Scotland and Massachusetts, to prove, that the laM^s of those countries, 
being opposed to slavery, will dissolve the relation of master and slave when brought 
in contact with it. I say, that slaves may be taken to Kansas or Kentucky without 
being emancipated. Mr. Douglas, with great gravity and complacency, answers me, 



2g 

tliat 1 am wrong, because slavery is not tolerated in England or Massachusetts. No 
instance of a. non seguitur so glaring and so palpable has ever before fallen under my 
notice. 

Mr. Douglas forbears to burden his jjagos wiih "the long list of authorities" which he 
says are cited by Judge Story. It is a curious fact that not a single one of those au- 
thorities touches the question in controversy between us. They all, without exception, 
refer to cases in which there was a direct conflict between the law of the country where 
the slave came from, and the law ofUhe country to which he was taken. No one of the 
writers referred to has outraged common sense by saying or hinting that slaves are 
made free by mere removal without any such conflict of law. The quotation from the 
opinion of the Supreme Court in Priyg vs. Pennsylvania is made with the same rashness 
and with no nearer approach to the point. 

The public will doubtless be somewhat surprised by Mr. Douglas's unique mode of 
dealing with books. For myself, I am inexpressibly amazed at it. I have no right to 
suppose that he intended to insult the intelligence of his readers, or to impose ui)on their 
ignorance, by making a parade of learning and research which he did not possess. But 
how shall we account for quotations like those? 1 am oblFged to leave the riddle 
nnread. ,\ 

II. Assuming that slaves taken from a slaveholding State into a Territory continue to j 
be slaves, can tlie rights of their owners be afterwards divested by an act of the Terrir / 
torial legislature? They can certainly, if the Territories are sovereign States; if not, ' 
not. On this ((uestion Mr. Douglas has placed himself in a most peculiar position. 
Heretofore he has alternately atRrmed and denied the sovereignty of the Territories. In 
his last pamphlet he seems to think the middle way safest; he admits that they are 7iot 
sovereign, but asserts that they have '■^the attributes of sovereii/nty." This is not at all 
ingenious. It must be apparent to the dullest understanding that a government which 
has the attributes of sovereignty, is sovereign 

Sovereignty is the supreme authority of an independent State. No government is 
sovereign which may be controlled, by a superior government. As applied to political 
structures, supremacy and soveieignty are convertible terms. To prove this I will not i 
refer to "the primer of political science;" it is found in all the horn books. Every half- 
grown boy in the country who has given the usual amount of study to the English y 
tongue, or who has occasionally looked into a dictionary, knows that the sovereignty of \ 
a government consists in its uncontrollable right to exercise the highest power. But 
Mr. Douglas tries to clothe the Territories with the "attributes of sovereignty," not bj 
proving the supremacy of their jurisdiction in any matter or thing whatsoever, but merely 
by showing that they may be, and some of them have been, authorized to legislate within 
certain limits, to exercise the right of eminent domain, to lay and collect taxes for Terri- 
torial purposes, to deprive a citizen of life, liberty, or property as a punishment for crime, 
and to creait corporations . All this is true enough, but it does by no means follow that 
tlie provisional government of a Territory is, therefore, a sovereign in any sense of the 
word. A city council may legislate, but the cit}' is still subordinate to the State which 
gave it political being. The right of eminent domain is delegated every day to private 
corporations, but no turnpike company pretends to be a sovereign State. The courts in 
many places have authority to create corporations, the sheriff of a county has power to 
imprison or hang malefactors, and the supervisors of a township can levy taxes; but I 
think no judge, sheriff, or supervisor has ever claimed the purple or the diadem on any 
such ground. Governments always act by their agents, but the agent, whether it be 
an individual ofBcer or a political corporation, like a city or a Territory, is not in anj 
case sovereign, supreme, and uncontrollable. Thus the arguments of Mr. Douglas, which 
he elaborates through page after page with wearisome pains, are but touched with the 
finger of investigation, and they disappear forever. 

"The earth li;Uh bubbles, us the water has, 
And these are of them." 

Mr. Douglas, the Senator, the Statesman, the struggling candidate for the presidency, 
should not have borrowed from the lawyerliiigs and small wits of the Abolition party 
the stale, often-repeated, and worn-out assertion, that emigrants cannot have a right to 
the property they take with them, bec;use it will introduce into the Territory or State 
where they settle, all the conflicting laws of the different States from whence they came. 
Nothing could be less worthy of his high place in the councils of the nation. He ought 
to know that goods of various kinds are going continually into each State from all the 
other States of the Union, without producing any such effects. He does know that nearly 
all the personal property within the limits of a new Territory has come there from 
abroad under the protection of the axioniatic principle which he thinks ptoper to sneer 
at; and he never heard that any difficulty or confusion was produced by it. 



24 

I never said that an immigrant to a Territory had a right to his property without a 
remedy; but I admit that he must look for his remedy to the law of his new domicil. It 
is true that he takes his life, his limbs,, his reputation, and his property, and with them 
he takes nothing but his naked right to keep them and enjoy them. He leaves the ju- 
dicial remedies of his previous domicil behind him. It is also true, that in a Territory 
just beginning to be settled, he may need remedies for the vindication of his rights above 
all things else. In his new home there may be bands of base marauders, without conscience 
or the fear of God before their eyes, who are ready 16 rob and murder, and spare nothing 
that man or woman holds dear. In such a time it is quite possible to imagine an 
abolition legislature whose members owe their seats to Sharp's rifles and the money of the 
Emigration Aid Society. Very possibly a legislature so chosen might employ itself in 
passing laws unfriendly to the rights of honest men, and friendly to the business of the 
robber and the murderer. I concede this, and Mr. Douglasis entitled to all the comfort it 
affords liim. But it is an insult to the American people to suppose, that any community 
can be organized within the limits of our Union who will tolerate such a state of things. 
If it sliall ever come to that, Mr. Douglas may rest assured, that a remedy will be found. 
No government can possibly exist, which will allow the right of property to go unpro- 
tected; much less can it sutler such aright to be exposed to "unfriendly legislation.'" 

Mr. Douglas thinks that a Territory may exclude slaves, or interfere with tlie rights 
of the owners, because, in some of the organic acts, the general grant is made of au- 
tliority over "all rightful subjects of legislation." This is not the least unaccountable 
of his strange notions. In such an act nothing is taken by implication, nor could the 
power in question be given even by express words, for it is forbidden by the Constitu- 
tion to the Federal Government itself. The logic so peculiar to Mr. Douglas, which in- 
fers the power to give from the want of possession, may sustain such a construction of 
a statute; but nothing else Avill. 

A "plan" relating to the Territories w-as offered to Congress by Mr. Jefferson in 1784. 
It was a mere projet, in the form of resolutions, embodying certain abstract proposi- 
tions in anticipation of settlements yet to be made in the 'wilderness. It did not estab- 
lish any governnent, temporary or permanent, but provided how the settlers, when they 
would go there, might petition Congress and get themselves organized. There is not a 
word in any of the resolutions about sovereignty or slavery. They were passed in April, 
1784, but three years afterwards they Avere repealed; the whole "plan" wcw rejected by 
C'ongres.s, and another 'plan totally different; (the famous ordinance of 1787) was sub- 
stituted in its place. Mr. Douglas, in Harper, referred to this plan,- and expended column 
after column of dreary comment upon it. It was ridiculously inapplicable to his argu- 
ment; like his quotation from Story, it had no more to do with the subject before him than 
the Edict of Nantes. I referr -d to it merely as showing how he could wander from the 
point. But he allows his righteous soul to be vexed at me for saying it was rejected. 
It was rejected; for though Congress assented to the resolutions when first offered, the 
plan was repudiated before a single principle of it went into operation. Mr. Dougla.e says 
that it "stood on the statute-book unrepealed and irrepealable.''^ I take it for granted. 
that he would not have made such an allegation if he had known what I now tell him: 
that it was, in fact, repealed in 1787 by the unanimous, vote of the whole Congress. — 
(Jour. Cong., vol. 4, page 754.) 

I have regarded this dispute as on a question of constitutional law, far, very far, above 
party politics. But I am temjited to vindicate the democracy from the imputation 
Avhich Mr. Douglas casts upon that party when he claims the Cincinnati platform as 
favoring his creed. It contains no word of the kind. I may also add, that every demo- 
crat who desires to preserve ' 'the unity of the faith in the bonds of peace' ' will disapprove 
the odious charge T^^rtit Mr. Douglas flings at the President, of agreeing with him on this 
subject. The calm, clear judgment of Mr. Buchanan was never for a moment imposed 
on, nor his love for the Constitution shaken, by this heresy. Neither in his Sanford 
letter, nor in his letter of acceptance, nor his Inaugural Address, nor in any other paper, 
public or private, did he ever give the remotest countenance to such doctrine. He has 
often said, that the people of the Territories had the right to determine the question of 
slavery for themselves, but he never said, nor intimated, that they could do so before 
they were ready to form a State constitution. ' ' ' = . •' 

I will not follow Mr. Douglas any further at present. But I must not be understood a^ 
assenting to the numerous assertions upon which I am silent. There is scarcely a sentt-no^ 
in this whole pamphlet which does not either propound an error, or else mangle a truth. 
1 do not charge him, however, with wilful misstatements of either law or fact. 



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